Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Day 100 - Aggie Muster



So sorry for the delay in this post, but as I said last night, I got back at the hotel (with lobby wifi only) at about midnight with an early train to catch and it takes an hour to write each post. It was smarter to get a good night’s sleep and catch the train than to miss the train because I didn’t sleep trying to get this post out. As I may have mentioned, yesterday was day number 100. Wow. I’ve been in Europe for triple digit days now. I’m ready to go home now. Actually, can I please just skip the next few days and go straight back to the states? We counted up what we have in store for us in these next weeks yesterday and we determined that we have 2 physiology tests, 2 signals homeworks (a feat in themselves), 1 presentation, 1 signals test, a whole bunch of Design homework, and (for some) a paper to write. It’s going to be a long two weeks.

Anyway, yesterday was great! We were able to get to bed relatively early at about midnight and wake up rather late at around 10. It was glorious. After we woke up, we had one last breakfast, eating everything we could so there wouldn’t be perishables in the fridge when we left. We cleaned up the kitchen and packed everything away before knocking on the door opposite ours to get the guy living in there to check us out. Since our original renter was away for the week, he graciously offered to take over her position so we could leave the apartment on that day. I’m not going to lie, it was depressing leaving the quaint little building, and I wish we could have stayed in it for our final night. Ah well, c’est la vie right? We left after checkout with all of our bags to transfer to the hotel that was really close to the station we would need to go to the next day and thankfully everything went well and we ended up getting our stuff into the rooms.

Once that was done, we split up into two groups, one to go to the Eiffel tower and the other to go to a school/museum of research. Those of us that went to the tower wanted to set up a picnic on the green and went to the grocery store to grab a little bit of food for lunch. When we got to the tower, we set ourselves up on the green and enjoyed our little picnic before the Eiffel tower. Seriously, my life is so surreal! I mean, I went to Paris during Easter and was eating a picnic on the grass in front of the Eiffel tower! I’m going to get back and tell people this stuff and they won’t believe me! The only thing that put a damper on the mood were the Gypsies that came around to ask us for money or for a bit of our food, but we used our German skills to pretend like we didn’t know what was being said and they walked away. Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves on the grass and just sitting with the Eiffel tower in front of us and the sun sometimes peeking through the clouds to warms us up. It was amazing. When we had had enough, we headed up to the actual tower to do a tourist tradition: climb up the Eiffel tower. We had to wait in line for a while, but we climbed up all 681 stairs to get to the second floor of the tower. It wasn’t the top, they wouldn’t let anyone climb up that high and you had to take a lift to get up there, which was really expensive. Wow, did I just use “lift” instead of “elevator?” I’m starting to conform to the European way!

Anyway, we climbed up to the second floor of the tower and the view was absolutely breathtaking. We could see everything from the Arc de Triomphe to the Sacre Coeur to the Notre Dame and beyond. We saw things that we didn’t even know were a part of Paris because we couldn’t see it from the ground. There was a part of the tower that jutted out over the space in the middle with thick glass covering it. It was sort of like the Sears tower in Chicago, but not a box sticking out of the building and more like a continuation of the actual tower. We were able to stand on it and look down to see the ground and people below us. I tried it, but had to leave soon after because even though I didn’t exactly inherit my dad’s fear of heights, they still freak me out when all that’s holding me up is a little bit of glass. It’s why I didn’t go out in the box on the Sears tower and why I scurried off to safer ground when my whole group thought it would be a great idea to all jump at the same time on the glass. We could have stayed up there for hours, and I guess we did, but we had to leave so we could eat at a restaurant that the twins really wanted to try out and still get back to the tower in time to meet up with the other group so we could hold Aggie Muster.

The restaurant was really good! It was a mussels restaurant and I enjoyed having a semi-fancy meal for my last real dinner in Paris. I still can’t get over it. I was in Paris! Who says that? Especially if they’re still in school? Sorry, it just boggles my mind. Anyway, we finished and left to visit a place that serves really good dessert on the recommendation of a friend so we could have crème brulee or chocolate mousse depending on our preference, but we discovered that we needed a reservation to get in and decided to just go to the tower. At the tower, we met up with the other half of our group, but lost the twins who needed to go back to their hotel. The eight of us got together to celebrate Aggie Muster. For those of you not familiar with this tradition, it’s a really special thing that Aggies do every year on April the 21st to remember the Aggies – graduated or not – who have died within the last year. The tradition states that if there are two Aggies within 20 miles of each other, they should get together to grab a bite to eat and remember both their lost comrades and their school experiences. So we held Muster in front of the Eiffel tower, yelling out the Aggie War Hymn, reading some poems, remembering those in our years who passed away as well as mentioning some personal friends who were unable to come to ATM because they were taken before their time. It was really rather sweet and humbling to think that on this day, we were a part of something bigger than ourselves that spanned the entire globe through the Aggie Network, all of us remembering our fallen colleagues and reminiscing about our days at school.

After all the poems were read and the speeches said, we concluded Muster and sang the Spirit of Aggieland before we went out to get a bite to eat. In this case, we stopped at a nice restaurant to finally have our crème brulee and chocolate mousse. We arrived at our hotel at about midnight and just about collapsed into our beds. Hey, we walked quite a bit yesterday, and the day before, and the one before that…actually, this entire trip has been one of walking, sightseeing, eating, walking, eating, eating, and walking. It’s been absolutely amazing being in Paris, and I wish I didn’t have to leave, but I know that we probably hit the sweet spot of seeing and experiencing everything with just one or two things more to see but not overstaying. I will say that I don’t think my poor feet could handle any more serious walking with the blisters I have, nor could my wallet sustain me for much longer because even though we got into a bunch of places for free, we still experienced everything, including the expensive price of living in Paris. Right now, I’m on a train back to Bonn, where we’ll arrive just in time to get to our class, but I’ll save that update for when I can write it tonight.

It’s been a great weekend. Happy hundred day, Easter Weekend, and Aggie Muster!
Erin Z

P.S.: Still no pictures for now to keep with the form for the past few days. I’ll upload them tonight in one giant wall of pictures. Expect a lot. Ciao!

1 comment:

  1. In this blog you had English, French and Italian. You mentioned speaking German to the gypsies so that's 4 different languages. You are truly a world traveler! Can't wait to see you and talk with you at Matt's graduation.
    Je tem,
    Nana

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